County sets its priorities for year

Sober homes, the environment and homelessness are the top issues Palm Beach County officials want to tackle in the 2017 legislative session.

Halfway homes for drug addicts, called sober homes, have proliferated throughout South Florida, but especially in Delray Beach and other parts of the county.

What to do about regulating sober homes — where they can be and how many can be in one area — has been a tricky issue. As the state and county have been trying to regulate the homes, the federal government contends that such regulation is difficult due to the Fair Housing Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. The ADA law qualifies drug addicts as disabled people, while the former prevents government from removing disabled people from their homes.

“We’re not going to stand for bad spending of money, where you have one agency spending money and it causes another agency to spend money to fight it,” said state Rep. Rick Roth, R-Wellington, at a meeting Wednesday with the county’s commissioners and state representatives.

A county task force has made recommendations for new sober homes regulations that will be in line with federal mandates. Those recommendations will be the basis for new legislation filed by state Rep. Bill Hager, R-Boca Raton. In a draft report, the task force called for raising industry fees to hire more regulators, making it easier for investigators to access patient records, toughening penalties for illegal patient referrals and requiring commercial sober homes and marketers to be licensed.

Some sober home owners have been accused of taking addicts’ money but leaving them on the streets and, according to Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, a crackdown on sober homes could increase the homeless problem in the county.

“Homelessness ties into everything,” said Sen. Bobby Powell, D-Riviera Beach, chairman of the Palm Beach County Legislative Delegation.

Of Palm Beach County’s 1.3 million people, up to 5,000 are currently homeless, according to county estimates. A 2015 count of homeless people in the county put the number at 1,421. Advocates say the counts are likely low because homeless people move around and sometimes use temporary housing.

Two apartment buildings in Belle Glade were recently condemned, and there was nowhere for the 70 residents to go, county officials said.

The county commission is also asking the delegation to pursue millions of dollars in water and environmental projects. These include:

$1 million to continue Everglades restoration projects;

$3.5 million for Lake Worth Lagoon and Loxahatchee preservation projects;

$28.5 million for beach renourishment to repair damage from Hurricane Matthew;

$4 million for a Loxahatchee River preservation project.

Commissioner Melissa McKinlay said that new local laws would require city officials to actually live in the city they’re representing.

She used Westlake, the newest city in the county, as an example. Westlake was created by a handful of people living in a temporary trailer, paving the way for development.

“If you’re representing Westlake, you should live there instead of West Palm Beach or down in Lake Worth,” she said.

The delegation also presented four local bills regarding the Building Code Advisory Board of Palm Beach County, the Port of Palm Beach, the Solid Waste Authority, and police pension funds.

Most of the changes are minor and would affect only people and companies that directly do business with these groups. The changes to the pension fund have already been agreed upon by the West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Associations.

The Legislature’s 2017 session begins March 7.